Thursday, July 3, 2014

How Milo came & what followed.

Hi everyone, sorry that it has been so long since I've updated here. The last few days have been completely crazy for us, and a lot of it feels like a blur to me.

I am going to cover a lot of ground quickly since so much has happened for us since I last updated on Tuesday.

So, the plan had been to induce labor on Thursday, since that is when Mr. Man would have been full term, but Monday morning when I got up for the day I was not doing well at all. My blood pressure was very high, my sense of balance was all but gone, I was having pain in my chest, and I was altogether not doing well. I felt like a red warning light was flashing on my insides. Something was really wrong and I started to panic a bit.

Fortunately, the resident MD who had been seeing me everyday for a week acknowledged the drastic change in my otherwise calm demeanor and noted that since my symptoms were getting worse that it would probably be wise to move my induction up to Tuesday.

That night they started me back on a magnesium sulfate drip, antibiotics, and on a medicine to soften my cervix. In the morning they used a foley bulb to open everything up and see if labor would take off on it's own... but it didn't (surprise, surprise). Hey, at least Aaron & I got in a few good games of Scrabble ;)

My body continued to stay in the holding pattern it had been in since I arrived in SF, so in the afternoon they started me on a drip of pitocin. The nurse we had was wonderful & very capable, and she made the whole process seem really close to how my other normal labors have progressed. By 6:00, they could tell that labor was happening full tilt and they stopped the pitocin drip. By 7:00, it was time to catch a baby. My otherwise quiet delivery room exploded with at least a dozen doctors and nurses, and @ 7:33 with just 3 or 4 pushes Milo Beckham Souza arrived on the scene.

It was nice to have some time to get to know him and enjoy him that night. He is a very sweet, mellow baby with a great attitude. He sleeps a lot more than Norah & Elliot did at this age, and man does he love to eat! He is really good at it too, which is an added bonus.

We got to sleep pretty late that night, and I didn't sleep much, as tends to happen with a hungry newborn. First thing in the morning the nursery staff came to get Milo to start his tests. I was so exhausted that I had to stay behind and rest for a few hours while Aaron went along with him.

The ultrasound that the urologist ordered showed that Milo's kidneys were just as swollen as they had appeared in utero, so they went ahead and ordered another test which involved catheterizing him and taking an X-ray of what happens when he voids urine. I also had to stay behind in my room while this test was being done since I was feeling a bit woozy when I tried to stand. I was very grateful to have Aaron there taking care of the baby.

In the afternoon I was feeling slightly better and I needed to feed Milo, so I had Aaron wheel me (& my IV) down to the Intensive Care Nursery where they were keeping him until they heard what the results from his test were.

Coming here was a bit overwhelming for me. I had no idea how many emotions I would feel entering this room of tiny sick children who were fighting for their lives. I was blown away & slightly terrified at all that I saw. I was flooded with feelings of devastation for the babies, hope & respect for the parents, and also extreme gratitude that my baby was the healthiest one in the room.

The rest of my afternoon was a constant run back and forth between the ICN to feed the baby and my hospital room since the nurse had to check on me & my bag of "Mag" every 2 hours.

By the end of the afternoon we still hadn't heard from Urology and they needed the ICN bed for a higher needs baby. They decided to transfer Milo to the High Observation Nursery since he still had a catheter in and the plan of action wasn't clear.

Around dinner time we finally got a visit from the Urologist. He brought us good news! Milo doesn't have the Posterior Uretheral Valves that they originally thought he had. They think that he has a reflux issue (VUR), and so that means that he doesn't need surgery for the time being. He doesn't seem to have an issue peeing, so the catheter was ok to be removed. He does, however, have what they consider to be Grade 5 Hydronephrosis (swollen kidneys), so they will need to continue to monitor him over time and we will need to see a Nephrologist as well.

Since no further observation was needed, we began trying to get Milo back in a room with me. It took forever to get him released from the nursery because of some beaurocratic issues, but finally we got him back. This was great, and so was the fact that they were taking me off the Mag drip that evening. Since everything felt like it was going well, Aaron left for Modesto with the plan that he would come with the kids and pick me up to go home Friday, after my 48 hours in the hospital was done.

Well, it was a good plan anyways.

Shock of my week happened the next morning when the doctor came by to do her rounds. She asked me all of the normal questions that she had been through out the week. Then she told me that they would be discharging me that morning since they had no medical grounds for keeping me. I asked her why, since it hadn't been 48 hours yet, and she let me know that they counted days by midnights, so they counted Tuesday as my first postpartum day, even though Milo came at 7:30 pm.

This started a whole chaotic morning of trying to communicate with doctors, social workers, nursery staff, and my husband. By the middle of the morning I called Aaron and told him to just come and get me and take me back to his dad's house since things weren't looking promising at the hospital. The nursery finally decided to discharge Milo too on the condition that I take him to the doctor at home on Saturday morning for follow up.

At 2 pm, for the first time in 2 weeks, I was a free woman.

After 4 hours of the worst traffic ever I found myself in Modesto being greeted by my family who were anxiously awaiting the arrival of Mommy & the new baby.

The next morning, thanks again to my amazing husband, we were all packed in the car for what turned out to be a 10 hour drive back home (note to self... combo of breast feeding newborn and potty training toddler not a recommend for timely travel).

So now we are finally home. We are all trying hard to recoup from all that the last 2 weeks has brought to us, but we are very grateful to all be together again with the addition of sweet baby Milo... the prize for all our struggles.